The Choice: The Easy Way or The Hard Way
by When you belong to me
Summary: After she charged a murderer's gun on the mountain to save Patrick Jane's life, Hightower demands a marriage-vow-breaking, Red John-baiting price.


****The Choice: The Easy Way or The Hard Way****

 ** **And: To Whom Does Patrick Jane Belong? Angela, Lisbon, Hightower—Red John?****

 ** **Author's note: For Clairebare. For all the hours of pleasure and astonishment your stories have showered on your readers, like gold coins flung down in abundance. Hopefully this is also an inducement, Clairebare, to write many more stories, starting now.****

 ** **Characters: Patrick Jane, Hightower, Lisbon, Red John****

 ** **After she charged a murderer's gun on the mountain to save Patrick Jane's life, Hightower inspects him thoroughly for injury, then demands a marriage-vow-breaking, Red John-baiting-price.****

"It's too late now." Madeleine Hightower consulted her phone, looking up at Jane through her shielding lashes. "If we left for Sacramento now, at best we'd get there in the middle of the night."

Patrick Jane still looked shaken, and for once unpolished, his clothes pulled back not quite into place after the killer had grabbed him. He had landed on the rocks, and ultimately he had known that the murderer, or Hightower, could have killed him. It had left him an unsettled look, which still could not offset his exquisite beauty.

Hightower was still reverberating inside, feeling how easily he could have gone fatally downhill from those odd, sexy moments when he had suddenly buried his head in her breasts.

 _('What, what are you_ _doing_ _?')_ _ _Right, merely hiding from a suspect, of course.__ _ _He could have hidden other ways—would he have done that to Minnelli? And then somehow he had turned her around and held her in the crook of his arm, his long hand draped over and holding her shoulder, his arm high, where she could have cradled her head back into it, and suddenly had wanted to. And he had stood there, holding her, pointing to the suspect routinely getting into his truck and driving off. There was such a big need to observe that whole unremarkable performance, while holding her close. Her arm was behind him, too, and had its own ideas about where to land. But she did not let it. She had finally shaken those inclinations off, maybe not quickly enough, and ended the closenes__ _s._ _ _She was his boss...__

And later, on the mountain, there was only a gnat's fraction, a bullet a hair to the right or left, which made the difference from, right _now_ , having all that male beauty laid out in a hospital bed, or a morgue.

She knew that he understood that, too. He was trying, hard, to recover his casual, what-the-hell attitude, after knowing that her astounding—even foolhardy—charge, shooting at his captor, could have killed _him._ ("What were you __thinking__?!")

Not to mention that Hightower could have, probably should have, been cut down like a charging dog. Not her finest hour. Unless it was.

Somehow, through her sheer will, possibly, shots she could not really aim while charging had saved Patrick. And the day.

"We have the rooms at the motel," Jane said mildly. "Lisbon held them in case it took another day."

She winced at the mention of Lisbon. "I'll call my sister to take the kids off Lisbon's hands. And Lisbon, to let her know you're alive. No thanks to you and your damn risk-taking."

"Thank __you__ ," he said soberly, quietly.

"Don't thank me. You could be dead. I grant you, you got the bastard. Or he got you. But I never planned to die on that mountain. And I could have. My kids. . . ." She shook her head and walked off.

There was a deep, underlying anger in her—at him. Yes, it was his duty, more or less, to reveal the killer, and, per Jane's usual tricks and levels, he'd psyched out the man and made him reveal himself. But the killer had grabbed Jane and could have taken him out before she could act.

As it was, he'd fallen, hard, painfully, on ragged mountain rocks and largely on that part of his anatomy which was generally most ogled and admired, not to say slavered over. Descriptions of it were rife with assorted themes amounting to 'perfect,' 'a ten,' with variations along the lines of 'so round, so firm, so fully packed.' South of that was the more or less pornographic or unprintable. Hightower, serving in a command post, was in no position to comment, and did not, but she eavesdropped extensively on the bull sessions of some of the female bulls. And a few males. Not to mention hearing other assorted comments from witnesses or suspects, including those accused, and those he revealed to be guilty. Some of them noted that he did not seem to wear much over that asset, under the close-fitting blue suits. He was a little more mountain-ready today, under his short pea coat, but she suspected that was still true.

Jane was trying not to show a slight, stiff limp. Failing. She saw every bit of stiffness, wondered what had happened to silky skin on his back, ass, and other parts.

He truly was like an exquisite work of art, silk and satin over fine muscle, classic features, sculpted bone, and parts which he never revealed. Not at an office party at a beach. Nothing.

She made her calls. Her sister. Okay. The kids would be fine.

Lisbon answered her cell instantly. "Agent Hightower." She didn't quite say, " _Jane_?!"

"We got him," Hightower said in a briefing tone, "He took Jane's bait, then grabbed Jane. I shot the bastard. Dead."

Now Lisbon said it, not breathing: " _Jane_?!"

"Alive!"

Hightower heard the bottomless relief in Lisbon's moment of silence. She knew that Lisbon had maintained a stiff-lipped work face as best she could, cursing the injured ankle that had taken her back to Sacramento. Not being able to be there to protect him had made this case intolerably worse for Lisbon.

"Thank God!" Lisbon said explosively. "Next time, __start__ with __that__! _I mean, if you can, ma'am."_

"So noted," Hightower said.

"Is he okay?"

"Mostly. He fell into a mountain, anatomy first. Injured dignity, at least. Although..."

"Although he's the world's worst about that," Lisbon broke in. "Don't let him go all macho on you. He'll swear on stacks of Bibles that he's fine. And he'd be lying like a rug. March him right to the hospital. Um, if you can, Agent Hightower."

"Worth thinking about. But I've been the world's worst on macho Bible-swearers before. Mainly __him__."

"Almost all __him__ ," Lisbon groused. "That makes two of us."

Lisbon was not dense. She knew it really _did_ make two of them, with more in common about _him_ than Lisbon wanted to think about.

"Agreed," Hightower said, her tone not a tell. Was it reassurance, or a subtle further cause for Lisbon to worry?

Lisbon knew very well that Jane had always treated Hightower with a male-female teasing and tension, from a sudden kiss on the cheek, to a special tone, to when Hightower had protected him from Stiles' threats. She had then warned Jane that if someone came in with real juice, she'd make Patrick 'dance.' He'd teased, "I __love__ to dance," and done a little, graceful, sexy dance in front of her.

Now those two were off together, without Lisbon. And Lisbon was managing not to ask her boss about _ _that__ _._

"When can you get him back here?" Lisbon did ask.

"Not tonight," Hightower said firmly. "Nor down some mountain to a hospital. And I'm not about to look for a gold rush camp country doctor. Getting some rest will beat the hell out of that. Patrick has had a certain amount of shock. This could have gone south. Way south."

"Are _you_ all right, Madeleine?"

"Peachy. Unless I need my head examined. Local law will update you. My sister is on her way to pick up my kids. Thank you, so much for taking care of them. I'll thank you more properly tomorrow."

"No problem. Great kids! If your sister wants to take them overnight, that's fine. But I know that she works. Have her drop them back here tomorrow. I'm enjoying them."

"If you're sure, that would be wonderful. She did have appointments to cancel."

"I'll let her know that I insist. What do you mean, 'need your head examined?' "

"Some would say, including me, that I made a foolhardy charge. Not my fault that it worked out. I'll have to write up a negative report for the file on the lead CBI cop on this one."

Lisbon got the picture. "Be sure to include that the lead officer saved Jane. If you shot the SOB dead, whoever or whatever he was, you are in shock, too. I've been there."

"I know you have, Lisbon. I'll have to write another order for the officer involved for the hated post-shooting counseling. But that won't be how I'll deal with it." She had wrapped it into a tight ball and stuffed it somewhere in the back of her mind. She'd get to it. Not now. Aloud she said: "He murdered two people. And Jane got him to lead us to the gold mine he was trying to steal from the first victim. A mother lode, Jane thinks. And his son will get half a gold mine."

"That's the idea. Impressive work. But you shouldn't drive or be alone. Let me send the team. Or a chopper."

 **"** Thank you. No. But I _ _could__ use some rest, too. See you tomorrow."

"Well, if you're sure..." Lisbon couldn't push it to the point where Hightower would have to pull rank.

"I'm sure, **"** Hightower said. "Good night, Lisbon."

"Night, Madeleine. Tell Jane—no, never mind."

Hightower gestured Jane into the vehicle and drove to the restaurant attached to the motel. Likely it was not fine dining, but it was __there__ _._

He ordered eggs, his day or night standby, with details, and she gestured to double it. Then she ordered a stiff double scotch, and doubled that. He raised an eyebrow.

When the drinks came they locked eyes and toasted each other in silence.

 **Her hands were still shaking slightly from the adrenaline, not too badly now. It had been worse before. He saw it. And his hands were shaking, too. After a moment he held the glass with both hands to minimize it, then put the glass down.**

Finally he said, "I'm sorry. I should have figured out something that wouldn't risk you. You do have the kids. By yourself, now."

She was surprised, but nodded. "I do. And I know it every minute. But I'm a cop. It could be, at some point, I will have to rethink being that. If for no other reason than that something in me was trying to rethink it on that mountain, today. But I owed the cop—to you."

"You were magnificent," he said solidly, smiling into her eyes. That incandescent smile could break your heart. Especially if you knew his back story. And that smile threatened to break her sternness, now.

"Also, you were absolutely crazy," he added. "Next time, shoot from behind the rock, for God's sake!"

"Eat your eggs, Patrick."

For a few minutes they settled into an undefined silence, merely trying to recoup and refuel.

He nodded that the eggs were satisfactory, even by his standards, and she signaled agreement.

She kept running a cop's eye over guests coming and going, and the staff. For the most part they seemed like ordinary denizens of the mountain community. Small town workers and functionaries. A trucker or two. Gold seekers. People selling supplies to, or running scams on, the gold seekers. Some of them petty to medium wrongdoers, maybe. Local secrets and lies. Nobody who registered on her cop antennae as the great white shark.

But then, Red John would not.

If Red John were here, and he _could_ be, since he followed Jane's doings closely, the serial killer would blend in, maybe as a gold seeker or minor predator. Even staff. The man serving their drinks? Maybe hiding behind one of the beards or other facial hair features. Maybe, for all she could know, behind a modern version of a Mission Impossible mask. It didn't have to be the scary, obvious Halloween mask from the time Red John had shot the killers who had Jane plastic-wrapped to a chair like a Christmas package, inadvertently delivered to Red John's mercies. Or he could risk appearing with his normal face, as he probably had to the blind Rosalind, as a cultured, classical-music-loving and very satisfying lover.

At the same time, Red John, hands **smelling of pine and nails,** was building a cell-like structure next to Maya's, in which Sheriff Hardy had told Jane that Red John had planned to keep _Jane_.

 ** _Dumar Hardy had told Jane that Red John had given him Maya—"the woman I love—so don't you tell me he's not my friend." Jane had asked him what Red John had wanted._**

 _"_ ** _You._** _He wanted_ _you_ _,_ _ _badly.__ _" S_ ** _he had seen Hardy smirk on_** _Red John's tape of the basement scene, which he had been watching at the time._

 _"Now we'll just have to find another place to keep the two of you,"_ ** _Hardy had added._**

 _"Keep us for_ _ _what__ _?"_

 _"You'll just have to wait to find out. It's going to be such_ _ _fun__ _!"_

And, since the gun-hating Jane had shot Hardy dead when **he had** tried to kill Lisbon, how was anybody at CBI to interpret _that_? Hightower had often wondered what the hard-boiled Detective Bosco had really made of that, when he'd been given the lead on the Red John case.

Bosco. Poor son of a bitch. He had said he was very 'pissed off' about dying. That should remind her, if she needed any reminder, which she did not, that the killer could be using, **up** here, some other deluded follower, like the loathsome Rebecca.

 **Rebecca** had shot three CBI cops dead, and Bosco, dying, then dead, just to get the Red John case back into Jane's hands. _"He thought you would understand. He misses you."_

That blonde waitress who had brought her coffee and his tea and had refilled them a little too soon. Was she looking at Jane a little _too_ intently? But women always _did_. Another Rebecca?

After Rebecca had killed for him, Red John had killed her, with a slash of poison to her hand, right in CBI Headquarters, without being recognized or stopped. _(How had he managed that?)_ Minnelli had resigned, one week too late not to have that happen on his watch. And Hightower had taken his place. It was up to her not to have another CBI catastrophe. And hers was the watch: To supervise, save, and rein in the back-on-the case maverick Red-John hunter-in-chief, Patrick Jane.

Just because they had wrapped this case didn't mean that this couldn't be a fertile hunting ground for Jane's one real case: Red John.

It would be too cruel to remind him of it now, even in order to use his extraordinary observation skills and intuition to scan for danger. Though he might always be scanning, without being obvious. She suspected that he was, even now, with some subtlety. But the danger could never be far from her mind.

Toward the end Jane said, "If my daughter Charlotte had lived after Red John murdered her mother, Angela, I wouldn't even have tried for vengeance. Charlotte would have needed me too much." He looked into a distance for a moment, wanting that, beyond all measure. Then he shook his head. "Except—I would still have needed to find Red John, end him, make her safe."

She took a breath. "So you might still have worked cases to track him down, might still have been risking your anatomy on that mountain today."

"I might have." He put down his napkin, finished the drink. "But I don't have her. Your kids, thankfully, are alive."

"Thankfully. I'm so sorry, Patrick." She stood up. "Come!"

It was somewhere north of an order, but close enough. Still, he escorted her out with the automatic gestures of a gentleman to a cared-for woman.

They walked together to the two cabin-like rooms at the far end of a row of cabins, under dark pines and emerging stars. They had some hand luggage and go-bags in the rooms. He dug a plastic key out of close-fitting pants pockets.

They stood together in the knowledge that after this day, nothing could be the same between them.

Finally he said, "Goodnight, Madeleine," and took her in his arms, and kissed her, softly, sweetly, taking her one full cheek in his long-fingered hand, seeming to touch it as if it were a rose petal. His lips were raw silk and live softness. Chaste. Reticent. Yet threatening to make her knees buckle.

She kissed him back, sweetly, not so chastely.

He pulled away a little, not harshly, but fingering the wedding ring he still wore for Angela.

"I know," Hightower said, "but it has been a long time. Angela would have released you, long ago."

"Maybe she has. If there were anything left which could release me. But _I_ —haven't."

In the inch or so between them now she could feel his personal volcano, the heat, the pressure, the sensuality, the long years capping it off to the bursting point, while he still somehow held it from exploding. This went so far beyond 'til death do us part. This was: **"** 'Til Red John do us part.' " And ever after, if Patrick could still manage to walk, let alone think, with that Vesuvius inside him.

It could not be good for him to keep on keeping on, containing it.

Never mind for her.

Or for any Pompeii down the hill from him when it finally blew.

She remembered now how he had shifted uncomfortably in the booth, twice, then suppressed it, knowing there was not much that Hightower missed. She had thought he must have hurt a hip on that fall against the mountain. Perhaps it was that, or that the need to shift had combined with some of _this_ bottled need.

But how badly _was_ he hurt? She felt some odd resolve gathering in the pit of her stomach.

He was fingering the key, regretfully, but with a committed look **.**

His other hand rose to his lips and he put a kiss on it, then touched it to her cheek, not trusting even the light kiss he had once planted on that cheek.

She almost grabbed him. Resisted it with the effort of her life.

He turned, blindly, found the lock slot somehow, opened the door, and was slipping through it into the dark, lonely room. Probably he would be up all night as he had often through a case. But there was no case now. She had killed it and almost died. Almost killed _him_!

Hang the expense!

Hightower found herself slipping through the closing door into the room, calling on the practiced moves of her training.

He turned almost into her, astonished, as she finished closing the door behind her.

"What?!"

She didn't back up, but he did, a little. The room was still dark—a few electronic guide lights, some moonlight mixed with flashing neon signage through the open window, lighting his startled, beautiful-to-tears face. He was shrugging out of the pea coat as if he was suddenly too warm. He let it drop.

She moved quickly, hand on the gun still on her hip, and checked the bathroom and closet. "Clear!" she said. The bed surround was solid wood to the floor and did not look like an option, though that could be a bad assumption.

He didn't ask why she had done that. He knew. "It's not just __that__ ," he said, not as a question.

"Inspection, Jane," She announced in the tone of an officer, coming back to stand in front of him. "I saw you wincing tonight from being hurt on the mountain. Those were sharp rocks you fell on. Maybe a neck injury from his holding you. And more. I am your commanding officer. I'll see how badly you are hurt. Now!"

"I'm fine!" he protested. "No problem." But one hip was slightly higher than the other. _Lying like a rug..._

"Remains to be seen," she said. "Take your clothes off."

"Don't be absurd! Even if I were _not_ fine—what the hell are you __doing__?"

"What a good commander would do if you were _not_ fine." Among other things, she thought. "Now I know that you go commando, often, under that blue suit, and probably now. Not even any layer of protection under there from the rocks, by the way. So start with the shirt, kick off the foot gear, and then you can just let it all fall down."

"How would you know _that_?" he started to say, but cut it off. "You're crazy! That charge into the killer's gun. You've gone round the bend, Hightower. Do you know what kind of case this would make? Sexual harassment, at the very least. Tell me that you would do the same to Grace?"

"Of course," she lied. "But Grace, good officer that she is, would just shut up and do it."

"Grace is not me. Not by gender. Or history." He stood straighter, his thumb moving the ring. "Seriously, Madeleine, I've had a day. Just so you know: If anyone—tonight, anyway—yes, you."

"Lisbon," she said tonelessly.

His little scapegrace expression acknowledged it. Then he wiped it away. "As may be. But it can't be anyone. Tonight. Ever. Until it is over. That's not a question of vows, although that holds, too. It's HIM. Red John. I don't think you understand. It's not just that he's a serial killer who could, would, target anyone I was—with. He thinks that I am _his. To protect, to punish, to play with, to..." Patrick broke off. "_ It's possession. Ownership. Stiles has said, 'It's a form of love.' "

"Actually, I do know." She did know everything knowable about Red John, after immersing herself in the file, no matter how grim it was, and their own CBI Red John cases, and what seemed to be the killer's obsession with Jane. And then she had gone out into the field, not keeping an official log on that.

But she knew nothing, until now, of Jane's "if anyone, tonight, yes, you." She held that thought close.

"You are not serious, not nearly sober enough about Red John," Jane warned.

She shook her head. "Sober as a judge, Jane. Sober as a cop. Yes, Red John is Jaws—the great white shark. The tiger, tiger burning bright. But _I_ am the damn forest of the night. I'm trained. And not only by CBI. How much do you know of my work before I came here, including the FBI? I want him, nearly as much as you do. He won't know about tonight. But if he ever did, bring it on!"

She knew that was stupid. But part of her meant it. At least she would get Red John. (A small voice worried, 'Or die trying!')

"Idiot! Really. Insane." Jane's voice was almost shaking. "Don't you know? He is the alien, the incomprehensible. Gentleman Red John. And a gaping maw of red death. Nothing you can comprehend. Or fight. And almost—nothing that _ _I__ can. If there were any way I could, I'd either somehow end it, very fast. Or maybe walk away and go after him on my own, not risking Lisbon or the team, or you."

"You must know that couldn't work. He'd just use them, or me, against you. You wouldn't protect anyone by being away."

He grimaced. "That is what stops me. And he's everywhere. Sometimes I think Red John has eyes in the back of my head. He would have known we were coming up here. He could have taken steps. I can't protect you. And I can't lose again! Madeleine, please go now."

She shook her head and turned on a lamp, having had, almost, her fill of moonlight and neon making an intermittent artwork of the artwork of his face. And she would deny him the dark.

The lamplight gave a different glow to every perfect plane of his face. It seemed to glow through the translucent skin. Beauty, in distress.

"I'm not going anywhere. I am dead serious, Jane. I'm going to look over every inch of your body for damage, if I have to rip your clothes off myself."

"That will be the day!" He shifted back closer to his usual mode. There was just a hint of male superiority.

"Are you forgetting who is the trained one here?"

He sobered. "Maybe. But upper body strength sometimes has its day. And you'd have to hurt me too much to do it."

"Don't count on me for mercy." She hardened her face as she had that first day when she called him in to her office to give him the warning: _'Everybody knows what you pull. But_ _ _you__ _are_ _ _golden.__ _You're good for everything short of murder. But Lisbon,_ _ _no__ _. You pull anything and it means that she can't control you. I'll get someone who can. She's_ _ _out__ _.'_

Hightower did not repeat it now, but she was sure he heard it in her eyes.

She took a step toward him. "Now, there's a very simple order, and it __is__ an order. Take it all off. Now."

She saw the debate behind his eyes go down to the wire.

"If I do," he said finally, "promise not—"

"No promises," she cut in. "Just do it."

He stood motionless, a sculpture of denial.

Finally he managed a microscopic shrug of one shoulder, as if it did not matter, and unbuttoned one shirt button. She knew that he never went with his team to the beach, or did a pickup game of basketball, or, rarely, if ever, so much as took a vest off if he slept on the couch. Nobody at work ever saw an inch of Patrick Jane skin, beyond hands, forearms, face and throat. Barely even if he was half dead. Yet everyone in the CBI building, and many beyond, had a mental picture of Patrick Jane naked. And pretty much all of them, female, of course, but she had heard, also, that both gay and straight men regarded him as beautiful.

The buttons opened under long, deft, if reluctant, fingers. He took a breath and pulled off the shirt, as if he did it in front of her, and God, every day.

The speculators, including Hightower, were all correct. He was beautiful. To the point of pain. A deeply sculpted chest, tight abs, broad, silken shoulders, taut, carved-muscle arms. And everywhere, ripe, smooth muscles—how did he do it without ever seeming to lift a finger?

As if following her instructions, he was kicking off the foot wear, bent a moment, still facing her, though she would not have minded if he had turned around, to present that much-discussed view—to pull off one sock after another, balancing easily, without thought. He stood barefoot, legs slightly apart, a promising bulge showing through the pants.

He did turn, then, showing her his broad back, tapering down to a tight waist, all alabaster fair, delicate skin. More or less unbroken, though there was a nasty bruise and scrape on the right, above the waistband and continuing south.

"See. There's nothing," he muttered.

"You should see the view from here. A bruise the size of your kidney, which, by the way, may have been damaged, too."

"Really? Well, never mind. It's just one of those lumps everybody takes."

She reached out and touched it, gently, and he winced. "You aren't feeling it fully. You are still mainlining adrenaline."

"If so, it means that you are, too."

"I wouldn't deny it. But I'm trained for that, too." She slid her fingers under the waistband at the bruise, testing it and he tightened to avoid flinching. "I'll see the rest of it. Now **!** "

He stood immobile, then finally released the waistband and inched it down. Not only the rest of the bruise emerged, but the tapering layers of muscle, gathering themselves down into the cleft. There were some other bruises and scrapes from the rocks, but they did not fully hold her attention, though she touched the rest of the large bruise.

When she couldn't tolerate his glacial pace a moment longer, she suddenly slid her hands down under the waistband, pushing it down, hard, and filling her two hands with two full curving handfuls of surprised, hardening flesh. The full, outlined-in-fabric, buttocks everyone had tried to imagine, were now naked to her and in her full hands.

She had been right. Commando. No underwear. And in front—She didn't know where to look first.

He leaped a little forward. "Jesus, what the _hell_ do you think you are doing?!"

"Inspecting. Of course."

He pulled further away, angry now, turning to confront her.

Not an entirely successful move. What she had freed was also a picture of perfect male beauty, heavy, soft, substantial—and working toward hardening slightly. And could he have been hurt there, too? His hair looked like burnished gold.

" _Screw it!_ " he burst out, looking down and noting that it was not a power position. But he continued, his jaw tightening, only making him more exquisite. "That's it! That's all. You can see, if you really had any concern, that I'm—adequate, if not okay. No touching needed. Now leave. I'm not doing this. There __is__ Angela."

"There _was_ ," she said. Not kindly. Unless it was. "It's enough. It's past. It's over. Tonight. Today on that mountain, I saved your damned, risk-taking ass, your gorgeous risk-taking ass. And it's mine!"

"You did. I owe you. But not _that_!"

" _That_ ," she said. "In spades. Heaped up and running over. Actually, you've owed the female population of the planet, or at least a couple of its nearby representatives, _that,_ for a long time. Lisbon has saved your life, many times. Now _I_ have, twice, and I've saved your job, variously, which you contend is more important than your life, since it is your shot at Red John. I do get that. But you—you flaunt your ass even when you bend over to inspect a body. Flaunt yourself. Tease. You are 'asking for it'—in body language spoken all over the planet."

The pants were slipping down his legs, revealing long, muscle-thick, strong thighs. Jesus, he must have practiced for trapeze acts on the carny circuit. Or taken up surfing on weekends!

Maybe both.

The pants fell down to his ankles, revealing equally tasty muscled calves.

He gave it up and stepped out of the crumpled pants, standing naked before her.

Breathtaking. As expected. More than expected. The curve at the edge of his lower abdomen went down in a line that would have made a mule faint.

So vulnerable. But he was still defiant. "I've no idea what you mean about flaunting my ass. I look at a body, which nobody else does, much, or they see nothing. I sniff. I look from all angles. Whatever my anatomy is doing at the time is its own business. I make some effort to be a gentleman. Keeping a vow to a murdered wife is not a tease. Keeping the female population or its nearby representatives out of the target-for-tonight zone of Red John is not a tease. I failed at that, once. Not again. No. I don't owe you or anyone one else what I cannot—and will not—give."

"And if I insist that you do owe me everything, including _that,_ __let alone after all the foreplay you've thrown my way since the day we met, never mind since we've been here?" she asked.

"I still can't. Won't. I've always been clear about that."

"Won't? Let's not talk about 'won't,' Patrick,' she said with that silk-over-steel voice she used at times. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Actually, one of two easy ways, or the hard way."

"What?!" He shook his head. "What do you think you are saying?"

"We're going to have sex, tonight," she said definitively. "You can give in and participate—one of the easy ways, and we'll have a lovely time. Extraordinary time. One of a kind time. Or refuse, and I will take you down, and... 'have my way with you'."

"Not on this planet," he vowed.

"Don't doubt it, I do have the training and you don't."

"You'd be facing the biggest case in law enforcement history. You are my superior. My supervisor."

"Really? Are you going to cry rape—and be the laughingstock of the galaxy? Poor Jane, why didn't the lucky bastard just get his rocks off? See Jane cry."

He winced. "Don't count on it that I won't. 'No' means no."

"Only if you can make it stick. Ask women, from time immemorial. Lisbon, poor thing, should have done this long ago. You've driven her beyond crazy for years. She's got trained moves, too. She should have thrown you down and had done with it. She's too civilized. At least until some day when she might not be. I'm not civilized. Not tonight. Not sure I ever was, but certainly not for the tease of the planet. And not after the day I could have died, or killed you. So we _are_ doing this, Patrick. Get used to it."

"That's ridiculous. Whatever Lisbon might want from me, that's the last way she could get it. It may be hard on her. But I don't have a choice. And I guess you don't want the same thing—maybe just a one-night fling that you think you could have? But I don't have a choice about that, either."

"What I may want doesn't concern you. What I will _have_ , does. Easy way, or hard way?"

"Neither."

"If you don't choose, I have to choose the hard way."

He shook his head, blond curls emphasizing 'no.'

"And, by the way, that doesn't work," he argued. "Even if you work me over. If I don't get it up, you won't get yours off."

"Oh, Patrick, don't be pathetic. You know and I know that there are ways for me to make you—make any male—get it up. Do I have to mention the prostate?"

For once he looked blindsided.

"You wouldn't!"

"No? I can show you. Maybe even in the easy-way scenario. And you'd writhe with pleasure."

"Not if forced. And if you did, I would go balls to the wall. Legal action. Whatever it took."

"Really. And what would Lisbon make of that oh-so-public scenario: See Jane Cry?"

He was silent.

"And who will be laughing at __her__? Only our whole world. Saying, 'Poor Lisbon—she hung around all those years and took his damn wedding ring for an answer, and never made her move. Poor, pathetic Lisbon.' "

"Don't even think about it!" he snarled.

"Up to you, Patrick. You can give in quietly, enjoy it, and no one, including Lisbon, ever knows. Or...?"

"Or _not_." She saw him balk, now with a new seriousness. 'No!' in every line of the Greek god, and-then-some, body. "Even if there were nothing about Angela, and there is, there is still Red John. You tried to say he won't know. Or that you will cope. There __is no__ coping. He knows who you are and where you are, and who you care about. He knows it for all of us. Often, I feel as if someone is following me. He may be. Or he may send someone. Or he may have planted some high tech bug on me that I can't find."

He saw the expression on her face.

"I know," he said, misreading the look. "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean he's not out to get me. And do God-knows-what to anyone he thinks has touched me! If there were nothing else—no vow to Angela, no Lisbon, no job, no hunt for killers—there is no safety here. Especially not for you. You think Red John can't know. But he will. I don't know how he will, but I know I have to assume that he will. We know he's had moles, disciples, spies, some of them among us. Undoubtedly he still does. I can't prove it, but I have an odd feeling that more is going on than we know. Perhaps he can have people almost everywhere. Maybe the sheriff of this mountain burg is outside the curtains that are flapping in that open window. Or the motel owner. Or somebody from CBI."

She looked over her shoulder, pulling her eyes away from him, knowing he was right. She, most of all, knew that there were a dozen ways he could be right. She took a quick step and closed the window, pulled the thick drapes shut over the thin curtains, knowing that it did not help. Tiger in the night.

"Right. That solves everything," he said sarcastically. "Except maybe bugs or videos he already planted. Or a hotel phone system or intercom he could set to record. Or some NSA surveillance system he could tap. Or maybe much higher tech. He would know what's the latest miniature or long distance tech the military or the intelligence people are working on. Parabolic microphones that can pick up a conversation from the glass of a closed window have been around for some decades. What can they have now? Bugs the size of a mosquito. Bugs that could get lost in my pocket dust. Or yours. And, yes, I've looked. But if Red John wants it to happen, it would be something I wouldn't catch."

"Even you?" She was acknowledging that he was the best. In that, too.

"Especially me. He would know all my blind spots. What I would miss. Every weakness."

She dug deep. "Then why don't you just give up? Don't chase him. Have a life."

She saw that that reached him, but he bit down on it.

"He wouldn't stop even so. He wouldn't let me go. And I have to kill him for what he did to my Angela and to my little girl. I don't _have_ to have a life, until _he_ does not have his life."

"Well, _I_ _do_."

He shook his head. "You have no idea how he would take _that._ "

"Tell me about it," she said, realizing that he needed to know more of what she did understand. "When Red John didn't kill you when he found you wrapped up in the chair by those nutty snuff-film makers who had taken his name in vain, you told everybody that Red John said nothing. Nothing at all. Nobody believed you. But everyone else in that room was dead or pretty well out of it. I went out to see. Owners of vacant or abandoned buildings sometimes have a camera system to prevent or at least record vandalism. Nobody thought to look or looked hard enough. I did, and hit pay dirt. I saw and heard it all, Patrick."

He looked stunned. And, what? Among other things, embarrassed? Not because she had seen Red John scare him half to death. That was normal.

"You didn't!"

"He touched you, patted you," she said. "It was proprietary. Possessive. Maybe obsessive."

"Son of a bitch!" he swore, and she wasn't sure whether he meant Red John or sheer frustration, or, gender aside, _her._

"I do have legs, Patrick, as you made a point of noticing in my jeans when I arrived here, and I can use them to do legwork. I have. I also went back and checked the house near Rosalind, where Red John built that basement cell to keep you in. I found the camera that you and Lisbon found, and the screen where Red John had been watching you, leaving his teacup behind, still hot."

He reached down and snatched up his pants, as if to put them on. Seeing him naked, so beautiful, so vulnerable, she could not help imagining him in Red John's control.

"That's enough!" he snapped. "And just where in the Red John file is this stuff you claim you found?!"

"You know that it isn't. Yet. If ever.. I don't think you would want it on the record, for all to see."

He was stopped for a moment. "Maybe not. But __I__ have to have it. And Lisbon. It's her case, too."

"Only to a point. The buck stops with me. Red John would know about it, too. CBI is an open book to him. And it might provoke him to take some action."

He took that in. " _I_ have to know. It could be leverage against him."

 **"Or it could be a tipping point to trigger him to action against you," Hightower said. "If he knew we had him recorded on camera, killing for you, patting you, virtually teasing you, what might he do? You lied to Lisbon that he had said nothing, because you didn't want to try to answer the most alarming question."**

 **"Which is?"**

 **"Why didn't Red John take you?"**

 **He winced.**

 **"A year before, Red John had built a cell for you, next to Maya's. A year later, when you were idiot enough to go into that creepy building, he had you, helpless. He's obviously a powerful man. He lifted up the elaborate, heavy, tipped-over chair with you, some 170 pounds of helpless weight, in it. He could easily have then carried you to his vehicle. He could have gotten you out of there. He is obviously very wealthy, with various places he could have taken you, say to the house where he was then keeping your kidnapped psychic, Kristina. When he came back and scared you again, and said that she would want him to give you her love, what did 'Roll Tide' mean, apart from being the Crimson Tide's football slogan?"**

 **"She had pulled it out of the waiter's head, she said, while doing an impromptu psychic reading."**

 **"While you were on a date? That would mean that Red John was watching you on your date," she said. "Close enough to listen."**

 **"Yes," he said sourly. "Most likely. Or he got it out of Kristina, somehow."**

 **"And** ** _this_** **man is not going to take you? Why** ** _didn't_** **he?"**

 **"Beats the hell out of me."**

 **"You have thought of that?"**

 **"Every day," Jane added grudgingly.**

 ** _ **The powerful man moved across the room like a stalking panther and poured brandy from an antique crystal decanter once owned by a royal personage some had suspected of being Jack the Ripper, unlikely though that was. But that provenance gave a certain cachet to the beautiful decanter, which he enjoyed.**_**

 ** _ **So, Jane did think about being taken. Every day.**_**

 ** _ **The man moved back closer to the high-definition color screen. Remarkable how much better concealable cameras and transmitters had become, just in a couple of years. He had sent a minion to set up the technology, just in case the two would stay over. Not even Jane had suspected that they would be coming from a fatal fire-fight on the mountain. Perhaps there would only have been two tired, shaken people saying goodnight outside their motel rooms. But that still would have needed to be monitored. It had been, using another camera. The cameras in the rooms should then have recorded them retiring in their separate rooms. But in case a different scenario developed...**_**

 ** _ **He'd thought that Hightower had it in her. He'd had a gut feeling that something would happen.**_**

 ** _ **He knew of that stunt that Patrick had pulled up here, burying his face in her breasts, holding her.**_**

 ** _ **Then she'd killed for him. She was not stone.**_**

 ** _ **Hardly anyone**_** ** _ **was**_** ** _ **, around Patrick Jane.**_**

 ** _ **The man always had thought that Hightower showed promise. As well as lovely skin over fine bones and steely nerves.**_**

 ** _ **He admired nerves, and nerve. As would Jane.**_**

 ** _ **Today the reports from local law on how Hightower had shot the killer from a dead-run charge, and narrowly**_** ** _ **not**_** ** _ **shot Jane, showed that she could be a berserker. He would have to give that some thought in terms of Jane's future under her command. It had worked for Jane today, but not by much, and could as easily work against him. Perhaps fatally.**_**

 ** _ **It was the second time Hightower had shot someone to save Patrick Jane's life, in the case when the daughter of a perpetrator Jane had put away in an old case had kidnapped him. She had been about to burn a house down on Jane and on Lisbon.**_**

 ** _ **There was now a whole file cabinet full of people who had reason to exact vengeance on Jane.**_**

 ** _ **No one could be there every time someone came unglued. That time he had been in Europe under one of his personas.**_**

 ** _ **And that time, Hightower had taken no unnecessary risks, so far as he knew.**_**

 ** _ **But today, yes.**_**

 ** _ **And if you combined Jane's propensity for taking unwarranted risks—like going alone, far from any backup, into that derelict building where the snuff-film creeps had wrapped him up like a present—with a Hightower who would charge, while shooting in Jane's direction, as local law had described, it was a volatile and, soon or late, perhaps lethal, mix.**_**

 ** _ **He could not always be there to pull Jane's anatomy out of the fire.**_**

 ** _ **He remembered Patrick's stark terror when he had realized that Red John was in that room, killing the killers and shooting their coerced dupe, and then, Jane had to suppose, coming for**_** ** _ **him**_** ** _ **. He had asked Jane, not in his own voice, "Do you know who I am?"**_**

 ** _ **And Jane had held onto himself and after a long moment said, very quietly, "Yes."**_**

 ** _ **He had often thought that he could not much longer allow even Patrick's own foolhardiness to run free. But now, if this woman, who was in command of Jane's professional life, was going to double down on risk-taking. . . .?**_**

 ** _ **And that was before she had showed any propensity for what she was doing now.**_**

 ** _ **Let alone whatever would happen between them the rest of this night, or after it.**_**

 ** _ **It called for serious thought. . . .**_**

 ** _ **But the woman had guts, which this man admired, nearly above everything. And brains, which, if anything, he admired even more.**_**

 ** _ **Hightower hadn't let her FBI background go to waste. She admitted now having film of that noteworthy incident when he had taken out the demented snuff-film makers, barely one beat ahead of Grady's knifing Jane. Since Grady was being forced with the threat to his mother, a bullet in the leg was enough for him, though it would have been safer to kill.**_**

 ** _ **He had gone back near the scene, carefully, when the hunt should have died down, intending to go over it with a fine-tooth comb for exactly what Hightower had had the wit to find: any camera there might have been. There had been no time or chance for more than the quickest look, before.**_**

 ** _ **But he had spotted the surveillance. Unobtrusive, but there. Someone—Lisbon, Hightower—was covering all bases. If he had taken out the surveillance, to cover a mere outside possibility, it would have escalated the case to a new level, which was not on his agenda. Then.**_**

 ** _ **He had checked on the owner of the place, who might have been helpful—if he had not been defunct.**_**

 ** _ **And nothing of that kind had showed up in the official Red John case file, which he was having monitored. Hightower had had the sense not to put it in the file. Or even to show Jane. Nor to trust it to anyone in forensics. Now, it could not be allowed to go public.**_**

 ** _ **Despite the mask and gloves and the fake voice, there were always subtle identity clues.**_**

 ** _ **Worse, no one was allowed to see anything which was between him and the man standing naked now in front of her.**_**

 ** _ **Nor to touch it, or him. . . .**_**

 ** _ **Not with impunity.**_**

 ** _ **But, whatever he would have to do later, she was providing him with a certain benefit: the soft lighting displayed skin like a rare Italian marble, in abundance, and highlighted Michelangelo- sculpted lines, curves, with the always-unexpected perfections.**_**

 ** _ **And this was not just a setting where Jane was alone, naked, but a drama she had set up, where Patrick, off balance, must react to this highly charged scene and to this outside-the-box woman.**_**

 ** _ **The watcher pointed the remote at the high-def screen like a weapon, but merely used it to shift camera angles. Jane's room, he had specified to the minion, was to have at least two cameras.**_**

 ** _ **The frontal view revealed, among other things, that Jane was, probably by his own choice, not rising to the occasion. He was soft, with only an occasional pulsing, beyond his control, toward a slight fullness. And that was despite standing naked before the woman in front of him—beautiful, startlingly brave, and alarmingly take-no-prisoners—all of which would appeal to Jane's brain and body, if the man knew his Janes. Which he did.**_**

 ** _ **So Patrick was using his well-known biofeedback skills to keep it down, which, if Hightower did not know that, or even if she did, was probably driving her crazy. As would be Jane's intent.**_**

 ** _ **She had been right. Jane had been driving her up some wall with foreplay, from day one. And now that game of chicken had come home to roost. . . .**_**

 ** _ **How far would she push it, and him?**_**

 **"Then** ** _I_** **am not the one you need to worry about now," Hightower warned Jane.**

 **"Of course not. Never mind that most of Red John's dead victims are female, and two of them were killed to punish me. Plus Kristina, whom he left in some kind of non-dead state."**

 **"True," she conceded.**

 **"And when you go haring off, alone, to two crime scenes Red John knows intimately. Without telling anybody. That terrifies me. Do you realize that he could have followed you, taken you?"**

 **"Conceivably."**

 **"And you gathered important new evidence, evidence you know you might not interpret the same way I would. And you did not give it to me. Which enrages me!"**

 **"I intended you to know, when I could tell you."**

"There's no 'when.' It's __my__ case!"

"As you have pointed out in threatening me with legal action, I am your superior, and you are my..."

He broke in,"No, I am not your anything."

He lifted a leg to put the pants on. With a quick move, she took them from him.

The muscles of his neck tightened and he almost went for her. She was ready. But he stopped himself.

"Just stand there, Jane. We never did get far with the inspection."

She moved forward and touched him. Just in the curve of the neck by the delicate, strong collarbone.

But the touch was electric. For him, too, she thought, even though he was still too angry. She let her hand explore his neck, seeing if she could feel any damage, but chiefly feeling the live silk.

"Patrick, we'll just have to cope. Okay. Red John is possessive. He's watched you and tracked you and virtually taken you, and had four cops killed to give the case back to you, and that's just for starters before I was around. He may be out there, or have someone out there, and I already came into your room. If he knows even that much, he'll already judge us as guilty. Just my being here is more than enough, and the world could know that. We're together in this, even if we did nothing more. He'll assume we've done the deed, and go as ballistic as he's going to go. Whatever we do now. We might as well have the game as the name."

She knew it was a false argument, even if true. But she saw that it reached him on some level. In for a penny, in for a pound.

She found herself quoting Kipling's "If", aloud to him:

'If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the world and everything that's in it.

And, what is more, you'll be a man, my son.'

For once, he merely looked surprised. "You bothered to memorize that?"

She laughed, low in her throat, and trailed her hand down to the sore hip, then around to the full curve of his ass.

"You've always been a man, Patrick. Me, too, in my fashion."

He frowned, but some corner of his eye almost laughed. He reached back and took her hand off his ass, and held her wrist away from him, but without force.

"Being a man? That's some trick, Hightower. But you do manage."

"Now choose," she said, freeing her wrist. "Easy way. Hard way?"

"Just for curiosity, what did you mean, a _second_ 'easy way'?"

"Oh, that. I thought you'd never ask. Well, it would not be as much fun for you, but I'd have what I want now." She reached into her purse, pulled out a little vial with pills. "Every now and then somebody leaves Rufies at a crime scene. Date rape drugs such as Rohypnol and other latest variations. I can give you one, with or without your consent. You won't be breaking any vows to Angela. Not that you could help, anyway. You'll be able to do it all. The body has its knowledge. Everyone knows you have to be a fantastic lover. We'll have great, groundbreaking sex. _I_ will remember it. And you will _not_."

"You really _are_ crazy! I should have known it when you made that charge into that bastard's gun today!"

"Like a fox, Patrick. The unexpected often wins, as it did today. Though it can kill, too, and maybe _that_ —how close we both came to death—is part of why I have to have you tonight. And tonight, we both get to get rid of our adrenaline highs, let alone release a couple of volcanoes waiting to blow, get you out of a years-long, obsessive bad spell, drive each other crazy in bed, which you, also, have wanted to do ever since I threatened you that first day. Spit in Red John's eye, by the way. And then drive home in the morning. No one the wiser. No harm, no foul."

"Foul," he protested. "Yours!"

"As may be, Patrick. Guilty, as charged. Guilty as sin, if you like. But I'll take all the guilt. You're free to hate me. Or to know, on reflection, that I have saved you, not only on the mountain, but from your locked-in self. But I won't claim that I'm doing it for you. I'm merely doing it. You just need to yield to the logic of the situation."

She turned, still keeping an eye on him over her shoulder, and closed the deadbolt on the door.

She turned back. "Choose."

 _ **The watching man drank slowly from the crystal brandy snifter that matched the royal's decanter. The luxury room around him had faded to a background condition. His focus was what was on the screen. Every line and plane.**_

 _ **When push came to Hightower's shoving, what would Patrick choose?**_

 _ **Or would he choose?**_

 _ **For that matter, how far would Hightower actually push it? Even if part of her believed that it was for his own good?**_

 _ **Would Jane give her any ground in recognition that he had not stopped tantalizing her from the moment they'd met? Until the final straw today. Arguably, Jane had started this, holding her.**_

 _ **Or would he draw a line in the sand, not only for Angela, or on general principles, but overwhelmingly because he, rightly, feared Red John—for her.**_

 _ **Not that Patrick Jane could win, either way.**_

 _ **Ultimately, Patrick would pay. He could play or pay, with her, tonight.**_

 _ **But the final consequence was this man's call.**_

 _ **Tonight, if he wished. Or at a time of his choosing.**_

 _ **Possession was nine points of the law—and ten points of what the watching man would enforce. . . .**_

 ** **Author's note: Shall I continue?****

 ** **I do confess to a level of curiosity that damaged the cat: What would some of you always-surprising Mentalist writers—and you know who you are—what would you do if you wished to play with this beginning to explore what happens in that room this night, on the morrow, and beyond, to Patrick, to Hightower, to Lisbon, to CBI, and to what this might provoke to add to Red John's contributions to their world...And?****

 ** **AUTHOR'S NOTE ON UPDATE****

 ** **(Inserted above in the story, in bold italics.)****

 ** **Another viewpoint heard from. . . .****

 ** **The site has been saying, in the heading of the story, for more than a day, that this story was published many hours ago, yesterday, and, indeed, some few have received it or found it, (it can be found on a Title search,) and written reviews or chosen to follow. (Thank you.)****

 ** **Those reviews have reached me, forwarded to my email.****

 ** _ **But the story never showed up on the normal Mentalist site.**_** ****

 ** **No clue why not.****

 ** **So I've added something that I had intended to flash back to later.****

 ** **Maybe, with a little luck, the update process will get past the gobbling gremlins and get the updated story where it belonged yesterday.****

 ** **Does anybody have an idea how to solve the glitch, if this does not do it, or know why it did not get posted?****

 ** **I thought I followed all instructions or prompts to publish it. I assume I did something wrong. Could I have pressed some wrong button?****

 ** **Enlighten me. Please.****

 ** **Note: I did get a reply to the above query from a very talented writer, whom I will try to thank personally, technology willing...****

 ** **I'm trying a new update based on his information.****

 ** **I have just joined the site, although I have been reading stories here and admiring many writers for some time.****


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